To a Friend
by LadyTaiyo
Summary: When the soon to be Fire-Lady is brutally murdered, all evidence points to the most unlikely of culprits. When the recently crowned Zuko investigates he comes face to face with an ancient legend that has dramatic implications for the fragile new world. AU
1. Chapter 1

_**I just watched the series final of Last Airbender, and was thoroughly disappointed with who ended up in a relationship with who, it was painfully predictable. So this plot bunny found me and suddenly I had an idea for a full multi-chapter story. The chapter that follows is a prologue of sorts, with enough positive feedback I will proceed with the story.**_

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><p><strong><em><span>Prologue:<span>_**

Mai is dead.

The words reverberated one thousand times around him as he sank slowly down into his chair, face buried in his hands.

She couldn't be gone, she couldn't, she was too young, heaven, she was only twenty six. Most of that short span of time had been riddled with war and strife, he let out a wretched sob, dead before she had the chance to live.

"How?", he whispered.

Through his blurred vision he saw the guards exchange apprehensive looks, finally one stepped forward and stuttered, "Hemorrhage ", he paused, "it looks like she was in a fight with a very high level bender, there was a massive damage radius, and-", the man seemed to lose his voice.

"What?", he practically shouted, he had to know.

"Sir we don't know how the attacker accomplished it, her body had only fifteen percent of a human's normal blood levels, but there isn't a scratch on her. We think that the bender-", the man shuddered, "We think the bender may have extracted it phsyco-kinetically, while Miss Mai was still alive".

All kinds of alarm bells were going off in his head. He knew only one practitioner talented enough to suck out a person's life force without touching them, but the woman in question wasn't capable of that. She was a pacifist, terrified of her own terrible power, she would never use her strength that way. It made no sense...

"Did you find anything else on the scene?", he rasped, dreading the answer.

Another soldier produced a small object and deposited it on the desk in front of him.

It was the broken top to a crystal vial, attached to a long, leather cord, he had seen it many times.

He had to be dreaming, he clamped his eyes shut, feeling like a frightened child, he needed to wake up from this nightmare.

Katara.

Katara killed Mai.

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><p><strong><em>Please Review ! If I get enough of them I will continue.<em>**


	2. Chapter 2

**_Hello Adoring Fans! : P_**

**_I'm only joking, in all sincerity thank you so much for the positive feedback, it means a lot to me._**

**_I've decided to continue the story, enough people seem interested to make it worthwhile._**

**_On with the plot, please review, I will update but it happens more quickly if I have some inspiration. _**

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><p>The first day without her went by in a blur, an utterly miserable whirlwind.<p>

He had gone straight up to his quarters and bolted himself inside, after ordering the guards who normally stood sentinel outside his door, away. He perched himself on an extravagantly soft, bed-like, window seat and waited. He didn't know what he was waiting for, just that something needed to change before he could face the world again. Detachedly he could feel despair gnawing at him, throbbing like a wound just outside the protective blanket that seemed to have swept over him, rendering him numb.

The sun was shining away, same as always, the fire nation didn't have four seasons, it had two. Monsoon season November through March, which consisted of five consecutive months of warm downpour, and the Summer season, which was a nice way of saying too fucking hot and dry. They were currently at the tail end of the latter. He could feel the ferocious heat against his cheek where it was pressed to the glass, but even when it began to burn he didn't move. The weather shouldn't have been nice, there should have been a storm of cataclysmic proportions, a tornado, a hurricane, a tsunami, something proportional to the scope of what had happened! Didn't the sky realize Mai was dead?

He felt the ornament in his hair coming loose and in a rare display of petulance he wrenched it out and chucked the crown at the wall, he didn't feel like a king. What kind of king couldn't even keep his fiance alive? The trappings of his station felt wrong, he couldn't play the part of stoic leader just then . He all but tore off the heavy outer robe, the enormous shoulder paldrons and cloak joined it in a heap on a floor, then the inner yukata, and finally the circlet on his left arm, he viciously kicked off his boots. When all of the adornment finally came off he was left in his underclothing, he padded half undressed to his closet, where he opened a chest of drawers and dug until he found what he was looking for, his old outfit from his days as a renegade, it was light and unembellished, just dark gray and tan, very dreary, it was perfect, he slipped it on. The pants were a bit short but he had expected it, it would have been stranger if he hadn't grown in the last nine years.

The mirror told him he looked extraordinarily plain, which was quite gratifying, he needed to grieve Mai as a human, not a monarch. He could already hear Li and Lo,_ poor boy, it was such a smart match_, _who was the next candidate for fire lady now?_

But he hadn't remained with Mai for so long because she was the logical choice, he had stayed because they were good for each other, because in the constant rush that was his life she remained the perpetual calm in the eye of the storm, because she made him happy. He didn't care that her uncle was a high ranking council-man, or that joining the two houses would have permanently cemented both his rank and her entire family's, he had just wanted to marry a girl who loved him.

So why had fate seen fit to rip her from him, why would Katara have taken her away? No! His mind screamed, it couldn't have been her, there had to be something he was missing, the waterbender simply didn't have it in her. He couldn't picture Katara killing her worst enemy, let alone an ally.

What were the odds that another blood bender existed? Likely slim to none. And even if someone else did exist, they would had to have been very strong to manipulate such enormous quantities, how would they have gone undetected for so long? Katara was highest ranking water bender on the planet, and although before the previous day he had possessed every reason to trust her, it was standard protocol to keep tabs on her. Every single master in the world was carefully monitored, just in case.

The truth was, one heard a lot of gossip waiting tables in a Ba Sing Se tea shop, and he had learned that in the last days of the war there had been talk of who would follow Ozai as firelord when he finally fell (it was no longer a question of if with Aang's strength), and despite Azula being declared heir, the people had clung to the idea that he would somehow come forward to take the throne. The idea spread and grew until he became as much an icon of hope as the avatar himself and with it came speculation of how to accomplish returning him to power, the most common scenario was this: that he would not stage a coup on his sister, but rather force her hand legally. By ancient law set forth by the first king of the unified fire nation archipelago, the country could be ruled only by a married man, the obvious reason for the latter stipulation was that it served as a reasonable guarantee of at least one heir. In other words, a fire lady alone could not lead.

If a suitably influential woman could be found and a valid wedding ceremony conducted, quickly enough, Azula would be forced to abdicate seeing as he had met all of the qualifications and in all technicality as the firelord's eldest child and only son, the birthright belonged to him.

The great caveat in all of it was that the union of a peasant and any member of the royal family was strictly forbidden in his nation, and the opposition refused to answer to any of the country's current nobility, as far as they were concerned, everyone of high birth was as much to blame as Ozai himself.

And that included Mai.

No, the rebels would see only one person on the firelady's throne. A resistance leader, already a princess in her own right, someone who had held the hearts of the people in her hands for years.

They would bow to only one queen, and the queen they wanted was Katara.

That was why the had both been so very discomfited by any suggestion of a romantic relationship between them, because a good two thirds of his own country was pushing for it and they were painfully aware of that fact. It was also why he had asked her to accompany him when he returned to face his sister that final time, because they had discussed the possibility and in the end made a pact that if there was no other way and Azula couldn't be removed, they would follow through with the desires of his people.

Katara had actually been the one brave enough to voice the unspoken option of last resort. He hadn't been able to believe his own ears and he had spent a good five minutes gaping at her trying to figure out if he had heard her right._Them_,_ married_? He certainly liked Katara well enough, but _married_? It was literally a case of fire and ice, and despite their best intentions they would drive each other crazy.

He would be lying if he said he hadn't at least considered...

...Katara was gorgeous, it was impossible to miss, and even more impossible not to think of her in that manner. But he had always regarded the attraction as simply that, he was attracted to her. That was all. He didn't know her well enough to claim any real emotional connection and although they related on some important issues they really didn't have much in common.

Besides, she had Aang and he had Mai, and they were happy that way. It was better like that, no strange politics dictated by the actions of a family member who had been dead for decades, no one was forced to relocate halfway around the world, no one was made to have a clandestine wedding at the ages of fifteen and seventeen respectively with the fate of the entire planet hanging in the balance.

It had all worked out for the better, not counting that he had almost become a casualty, their strategy had gone off without a hitch and last he had heard Katara was doing well at her home in the Southern glacier and she was quite content with her budding romance with the avatar.

So what was she doing in the fire nation, and why did it look like she was butchering the country's nobility?

He held his head in his hands, nothing was adding up and he could pitch himself into madness speculating.

Without the facts it was an exercise in futility, for all he knew the waterbender was still at the south pole minding her own business and there was some sort of unknown prodigy running around the capital.

He needed to get some answers.

He needed to pay the water tribe a visit.

He threw open the doors to his bedroom and let the momentum of his thoughts carry him to his private office where he sat to compose a letter, he needed to be careful, if she was completely innocent he would upset a lot of people even by s_ounding_ suspicious.

The message was short and simple, it read:

_Aang,_

_Something has happened, I can't discuss it now, I must speak with you face to face._

_I am coming._

_Zuko._

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><p><em><strong>Again, please review.<strong>_

_**Thank you.**_


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